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Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App (bloomberg.com)
Sarah Frier, reporting for Bloomberg: Facebook scans the text and images that people send each other on Facebook Messenger, making sure it all abides by the company's rules governing content. If it doesn't, it gets blocked. The company confirmed the practice after an interview published earlier this week with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg raised questions about Messenger's practices and privacy. Zuckerberg told Vox's Ezra Klein a story about receiving a phone call related to ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Facebook had detected people trying to send sensational messages through the Messenger app, he said.
"In that case, our systems detect what's going on," Zuckerberg said. "We stop those messages from going through." Some people reacted with concern on Twitter: "Was Facebook reading messages more generally?" Facebook has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how it handles users' private data and the revelation struck a nerve. Messenger doesn't use the data from the scanned messages for advertising, the company said, but the policy may extend beyond what Messenger users expect.
"In that case, our systems detect what's going on," Zuckerberg said. "We stop those messages from going through." Some people reacted with concern on Twitter: "Was Facebook reading messages more generally?" Facebook has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how it handles users' private data and the revelation struck a nerve. Messenger doesn't use the data from the scanned messages for advertising, the company said, but the policy may extend beyond what Messenger users expect.
It gets better, actually...
On any phone older than 1-2 generations back (and on most basic entry-level new phones), FB now has had a habit of forcing your mobile browser to a limited-functionality mode (m.basic.facebook.com), and disabling messaging on the browser entirely, even if the browser (e.g. Brave, Chrome) is the latest version and perfectly capable of rendering and using the pages. The only way past it is (for now) requesting Desktop pages. At the bottom of every basic page (or if you attempt to use the Message functions on their pages) they happily tell you that you should install their apps instead.
Guess they really want to shove you into their spyware ecosystem, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?